Itunes not playing friendly with network drive

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I've got a few Mac devices around the house, and I got sick of having all my media and documents scattered around all three. So this morning I set up a network drive / NAS so I can have them in a centrally accessible drive.

This drive already had all my iTunes content on it. It's usually this easy:
- manually find a song in it's new location
- iTunes will then ask if it should use that location to automatically search for the other missing songs.
- iTunes will hum away in the background fixing all the broken links.

But for some reason this is happening:
- manually find a song in it's new location.
- iTunes asks if it should use that location to automatically search for the other missing songs.
- I click 'yes'. But iTunes then tells me the missing files can't be located. ???

I'm not sure why this is happening, but I don't have the patience to locate 2000 songs individually.

I had a run where I did manage to get about 50 songs to amend to the new location. Then I clicked a few songs just to test the lag caused from the NAS. Now I am stuck relocating songs individually.

I've obviously got some settings wrong, but I don't know what. Any suggestions?

2012 Mac Mini, 2012 MBP, both 2.6 i7 quad cores, both running High Sierra 10.13.6. And an iPhone. Modem/router is a TP Link Archer VR900.
 

Slydude

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I have had this happen once or twice over the years as I move where the library was located. The methods of fixing this over the years have changed a bit. Here the one method that seems to work for me -- especially if you have iTunes set to organize the music library. It takes a few minutes to do but it is relatively painless.

1. Select the music in your library and hit delete,
2. You should get a message asking whether you want to delete the files choose No.
3. Go to the File menu for iTunes and choose Import.
4. Locate the files and let iTunes import the files.

This can take several minutes to do but is pretty much automatic. Make sure you have a backup.
 
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Thanks SlyDude.

2000 songs... that will take hours!

I should mention I have a much larger music archive on hard drive - my iTunes library is just for what I want synced to my phone.

Backup - yes!!! I just spent an evening ripping 200 random songs from long forgotten CDs. I had the 'keep files organised' checkbox ticked as I tried to transfer over to NAS - I thought it was copying files to a new directory - no it was fully moving them (which I didn't like, so I deleted the 'copies' :confused::eek::mad:... noone to blame but myself for that boo boo).
 

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Not sure which Mac you're using but it really shouldn't take too long to do for that number of songs. If I understand what's happening correctly iTunes isn't having to recopy the song. To use A Time Machine analogy it's essentially rebuilding the database of links to the various files. It will certainly be faster than trying to manually locate the tracks.
 
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I'm not sure what's going on either. The file structure of the library hasn't changed at all. I've just gone from plugging the HD from my Mac Mini USB, to the router's USB.

For some reason though, in this instance switching to a NAS setup, I am only able to find songs manually, one at a time. In the past i've always just needed to locate the root directory of one song file, it will prompt to find the rest of the songs automatically, and it typically does without issue.

I've obviously got a setting wrong, impeding my progress. Not sure if it's at the iTune end, something within System Preferences, or something at the router end. I'm completely unfamiliar with NAS architecture.
 

Slydude

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OMG, I didn't even think of that. I assumed it was a dedicated box such as a Drobo or one of the Synology devices. I bet a little googling will reveal that either:

1. The router doesn't play nice at all with iTunes>
2. Some specific adjustments have to be made in order for it to work.

What router (brand and model number) are you using?

Edit: When you launch iTunes and try to play music is the hard drive that you're using already mounted? If it isn't, try mounting the drive before launching iTunes.
 
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The router is a TP LInk Archer VR900. The hard drive is an older Glyph HD (2TB 7200) connected via USB2.

I followed all the Mac NAS setup guides I found to a tee. Can turn my computer on and off and the NAS drive is now a constant fixture in my finder sidebar. It's not rocket fast, but I don't need it to be, or expect it to be given none of it is NAS dedicated gear.

The NAS setup is working no problemo... just not with iTunes.
 

Slydude

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I was able yo find a manual for that device. There doesn't seem to be much useful information there but I did find this bit of information
  • If you use USB hubs, make sure no more than 4 devices are connected to the modem router.
  • If the USB storage device requires using bundled external power, make sure the external power has been
    connected.
  • If you use a USB hard drive, make sure its file system is FAT32 or NTFS. Some modem routers also support
    the HFS+ and exFAT file systems.
See the manual here.

How is the drive formatted? I haven't found a specific reference about whether that particular device supports HFS+ or ExFAT formatted drives
 
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Brilliant (y)(y)(y) Thanks Sly dude. Thats the problem right there... I assume.

I think they're both PC Microsoft HD formats. My drives were formatted to Mac protocols the day I got them.
 

Slydude

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I hope that takes care of the problem for you. In a way it makes sense. Time Machine does not play nice with some routers. I haven't researched it but I think that's the reason. Time Machine needs a drive formatted as HFS+.
 

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Time Machine needs a drive formatted as HFS+.

Big Sur changes all that. The new Time Machine will do APFS. That kind of makes sense since from Mojave onward drives are formatted to APFS. What I don't know is if the new Time Machine will consist of only "snapshots"?

 

Slydude

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Thanks Charlie. I hadn't read that yet. I'm still catching up with some of the stuff from the keynote. I've already jumped on the IOS 14 public beta bandwagon I might as well go all the way.
 

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Public Beta for Big Sur has not been announced as far as I know. I will probably jump on that band wagon when it does. Of course it will be installed on one of my external USB C SSDs. Fun and games!

By the way, I’m replying on my iPad Pro right now using Safari rather than the Mac-Forums App. Strange though, I had to setup my Ad-Blocker VPN to remove the ads. Never had to do that before. I guess XenForo is a bit more thorough. LOL.
 

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I checked a couple of days ago and Big Sur wasn't out yet. I'm not expecting it before the end of the month or the beginning of next month.
 

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